“They’re interested in the skeleton for social and ceremonial purposes,” Cottrell said.

A DFO team arrived Monday to take samples, photos and morphometrics “to see if we can determine cause of death and health status of the animal,” he said.

DFO lost sight of the calf for a while as it moved around with the tides.

DFO has had reports the mom is still around, “but that is not confirmed.”

The sooner they hear about a distressed or entangled animal, the quicker DFO can arrive to deal with the situation. “It’s so important to phone our 1-800-465-4336 24-hour marine mammal incident hotline.”

The death of humpbacks occur “much more often than we realize,” said Marine Education Research Society Education and Communications Director Jackie Hildering. When deaths occur out in the ocean, the animals sink to the bottom.

There was an unusually high mortality rate last year, Hildering said. The leading theory, is that with warming water you get red tide algae, which creates a biotoxin, a neurotoxin that can create paralysis, Hildering said.